Lessons From My Dogs

Two Dog Travel

Normally when we travel we choose one dog to take with us and one to board. This past week we had an unexpected situation come up that led us to taking both dogs on an 8 hour drive, to spend a week at my parents.

Both of our dogs are crate trained. One is a 25 pound, 4 year old Beagle. The other a 55 pound, one year old Labrador. Both are fairly good in the car, though is it rare we travel anywhere with both of them. And never had we attempted an 8 hour drive.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did in the car for such distance. We’d packed more for them than for ourselves — toys, and bowls, food and crates — to make sure to keep them comfortable and happy on this unexpected trip. I actually commented once to the husband that they were being so good I’d almost forgotten we had both of them in the back seat.

While nervous about making the trip with both, I was pleased at the idea we’d be saving money on boarding. If only that were true.

The crate we have for travel for the Labrador is a NoztoNoz n2 Series Sof-Krate. We’d used it successfully on other trips. This trip however she decided to show us just how clever she was. We came home one night after honestly leaving them for too long in their crates to find her lounging happily on the couch, wagging her tail in greeting as we walked in.

She’d managed to push her way out, knocking the zipper off track. I feared that once having figured this out, we were doomed. She’d know now how to get out of the crate, but the next day with the crating time not being as long we came home to find her in the crate, calmly waiting for us to let her out.

I had hope that perhaps the one time was just a fluke, but no. This one year old Labrador was just playing with us, and happily greeted us on the bed on our next return. $130 later a nice, new metal travel crate from Petco was purchased. If she gets out of this I’m renaming her Houdini!